Wednesday, December 21, 2005

It turns out that looking at the aggregation of billions of search queries people type into Google reveals something about our curiosity, our thirst for news, and perhaps even our desires. Considering all that has occurred in 2005, we thought it would be interesting to study just a few of the significant events, and names that make this a memorable year. (We’ll leave it to the historians to determine which ones are lasting and which ephemeral.) We hope you enjoy this selective view of our collective year.

Google has introduced a new feature that provides information about music and musical artists in response to music related search queries. The new feature works directly from any Google web search form, and results are returned as "one box" results at the top of the search result page next to a musical notes icon. As with other types of "one box" results, which can be triggered when searching for news, products, images and so on, music results are displayed when Google determines that a query might be related to a band or artist name, a song name, album or song lyrics.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

A crazy new product out of Taiwan seems to be aimed at the feed dependent of us out there. The 'rsstroom reader' is a bathroom gadget that prints news feeds onto your T-P - that's right, your TOILET PAPER! The best part is the "biometrics" toilet seat that'll figure out who you are based on your weight and prints the news you want - not your roommates tabloid garbage. Going to the rsstroom will never be boring again!

Google Librarian is the ultimate guide to Google made especially for Librarians and information professionals. We understand that your quest for information is not limited to books, and extends to electronic media. Google Librarian was created to help you - the librarian - master the art of online searching and harness the infinite power of Google and its services. We provide you with tips, tricks, strategies, lesson plans, tutorials, and easy to understand explanations to make your Google experience the best. As an added bonus, we will also track Google development and keep you up-to-date with the latest Google innovations.

Friday, December 02, 2005

Contrasting keynotesThere couldn’t have been a greater contrast between David Weinberger’s keynote address and one immediately following by ALA President, Michael Gorman. While Weinberger paced up and down the platform, gesturing and occasionally shouting in his enthusiasm for a new order (or rather, a lack of order), in another room, Gorman sat quietly at the desk, spoke calmly and deliberately, without a PowerPoint presentation, espousing his opinion that the function of the library remains the same as it always has: the preservation of human knowledge. In addition, to assist users find the information they want and, given the failure of the US education system, to look after the health of users’ literary skills.

Speaking purely personally and not on behalf of the ALA, Gorman said, “Digitisation, particularly Google Print is a mistake. It is a waste of money to digitise material that nobody uses.” Further, he does not like at all the idea that readers should be able dip into works that can only be fully understood when read completely and sequentially.

Gorman also criticised Google’s name change from Google Print to Google Book Search. He believes that library catalogs are perfectly adequate for book searches and Amazon is fine for book purchases.

The remainder of the panel, two librarians and a Google spokesman, didn’t share these views. Elisabeth Niggemann, die Deutsche Bibliothek is keen to grow the body of digital content whether by corporations or through government funding as exemplified by The European Library project. (More on the European Library will appear in the January Information Today International Column).

Glenda Myers from the University of Witwatersrand was generous, even overflowing, in her praise of Google, saying that in her remote and poorer part of the world, Google was opening access to literature that could never have been provided before.

Google’s John Lewis Needham pointed out three factors about Google that change everything to do with search that none of the earlier speakers had mentioned: the price (free), the speed (fast) and the age of the Google user and Google developer communities (20 to 30).

Looks to me that the score at the end of round one is: New Order 3, Tradition 1.

And from:Dick KaserITI V.P., Content

The emphasis on quick search and the retrieval of nuggets of information defies the thoughtful process of the scholarly tradition and libraries' role in preserving and providing access to the human record of recorded knowledge, he said.

With the emphasis on quick search, Gorman said, "We've gone from cataloging to this sort of reduction of full texts . . . and a new age of amateurism [blogs] . . . and a belief in the great myth that everything is available on the Internet and everyone can find what they want."

This, he said, creates a "perilous" environment for libraries, and even challenges the basis of our civilization by reverting to a pre-Gutenberg situation in which "everything is written on water, it just flows away."

What about Google's digitization of library collections?

"It's a huge misallocation of resources," he said. "There are lots of ways to find books, and digitizing whole texts is a waste of time. The chances of a snippet from a book showing up on the first screen of search results [as far as most users go] is fairly low. It would be better if Google would help solve the scholarly communication issue or fund the digitization of archives."